The Village is our Valentine!
Happy Valentine’s Day! For us at GVSHP, the Village, East Village, and NoHo are our Valentine, and we find new reasons to fall in love with them each and every day. In honor of the holiday, we are listing a few of the reasons why we love our neighborhoods, and ways you can get involved to help preserve and protect them.
Landmarks
Our neighborhoods are among the most historic areas of New York City, and home to a wide variety of landmarks that show many different sides of the city’s history. Between the individual landmarks and the historic districts, there are a lot to list, and quite a few were secured through research and advocacy undertaken here at GVSHP. You can learn more about these successful efforts through the Accomplishment’s Page on our website.
827-831 Broadway is one of the latest buildings that GVSHP helped obtain individual landmark status. However, the building’s owners want to put an out-of-scale addition on top of this beautiful cast-iron building that once held the studio of artist Willem de Kooning. GVSHP is currently fighting to make sure this will not happen, and we strongly urge everyone to write to the LPC and ask them to reject this proposal. You can sign and submit a letter to do so here.
Human Scale
Another hallmark of our neighborhoods is the human scale of its buildings. Thanks to the historic districts and other zoning restrictions, our neighborhoods are able to retain their character through a mixture of old and new buildings, many of which are low- to medium-rise, adding to the charm of the neighborhood. Unfortunately one section of the neighborhood still lacks appropriate zoning protections is 3rd/4th Avenue and University Place/Broadway. With the proposed Tech Hub on the former PC Richards site on 14th Street drawing ever closer to becoming a reality, it is now even more important than ever that we see this area receive zoning protections to ensure no out-of-scale commercial development happens within this section of the neighborhood as the tech industry creeps ever closer into downtown. To help us in our fight for this type of zoning, we urge everyone to do one of the following:
Write the Mayor to tell the City to support rezoning 3rd/4th Avenue and University Place/Broadway
Thank Councilmember Carlina Rivera for publicly pledging that she would make her support of the Tech Hub conditional upon protections for the surrounding neighborhood, and tell her you will stand with her to fight to get such protections!
Small Businesses
Mom and pop stores and other independent and local businesses have always been a hallmark of our neighborhoods, and a characteristic that contrasts these neighborhoods with the more corporate-retail and big box-defined landscape of places like Midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately, much as the tech sector is starting to set its eyes on the Village, so too are some of these larger chain stores, adding even more pressure to smaller businesses that are already struggling to eke out a living in New York City. At GVSHP, we are always encouraging everyone to shop local and try and recognize some of the independent and small businesses that add to the vibrancy of the neighborhoods through our Business of the Month program. However, we also recognize that more structural reform is needed to even the playing field, which is why we also urge our supporters to call on the City Council to pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA). You can sign and submit a letter supporting the SBJSA here.